In my last two posts about Jenifer Fulwiler’s controversial piece for the National Catholic Register (“Five Catholic Teachings that Make Sense to Atheists”), I mentioned that, although I thought it was a good approach to discuss the parts of Christian theology that seem most sensible and maybe even plausible to non-Christians, I thought the choice of some examples was misguided.

When I try to think of the most intuitively appealing part of Christianity, it isn’t anything like veneration of Mary, it’s the possibility that people who have done bad things and warped their own character could be healed. The woundedness and brokenness of people around us can look like a problem calling out for the solution of Christianity: radical forgiveness or grace.

In my mind, it’s the most self-evident way Christianity meshes with our lived experience. But…

Taken from Postsecret

For a lot of people (including a lot of Christians), the obvious implication of Christianity is Hell. The goal is a Hammurabi-style reckoning up of debts and offences and a promise of justice. Denominations differ on how much justice will be dispensed, ranging along a spectrum from reserving divine scourging for Hitler, Pol Pot, etc to admitting that “use each man after his desert and who should ‘scape whipping?” (usually, the answer is: just our sect).

Try and build up a reasonably accurate picture of the world, and you may find that there’s a convenient God-shaped hole. Slot Him in, and the whole model comes together. Chesterton and others lean heavily on this kind of metaphysical backsliding). In Orthodoxy Chesterton summarizes this feeling:

The spike of dogma fitted exactly into the hole in the world–it had evidently been meant to go there–and then the strange thing began to happen. When once these two parts of the two machines had come together one after another all the other parts fitted and fell in with an eerie exactitude. I could hear bolt after bolt over all the machinery falling into its place with a kind of click of relief. 

But it’s not enough to consider only whether your philosophy is strengthened by this addition. The radical forgiveness and suffering-solely-as-punishment hypotheses are in conflict, but both mesh with and are strengthened by a God hypothesis. Adding in the premise that God exists or that a broadly Christian god exists doesn’t improve the model, it amplifies whatever opinion the person already held.

To avoid accepting God explicitly for the sake of a deus ex machina, there has to be a better check that you’re not just accepting a mysterious answer to a mysterious question. A good start would be nailing down what experiences of God or scriptural evidence supports and debunks each of the conflicting worldviews. If you can’t rule some of these hypothesis in or out, it starts to sound like you’re worshiping a very diffuse divinity.

Just a cautionary note: trying to figure out how to love your enemies is something that can be totally appropriate to do from a long ways away.  If you are ever in severe physical or emotional danger from a person or community, your first priority should be escape.  Self-reflection can wait til you’re safe.

I’m not calling anyone to martyr themselves by enduring abuse for the sake of converting their tormentors or retaining a sense of righteousness or for almost any other reason.  Without the breathing room of college (and nerdy summer camp), I would not have been able to stop hating people who bullied me in high school.  I probably would have continued as I was: twisted up with bitterness and contempt long after my bullies had moved on.

In a post earlier today, I rejected a vengeance-motivated defense of mockery offered by a commenter but had to agree that the treatment of atheists in America (as well as that of many other marginalized groups) makes my blood boil.  Since I rejected the righteous anger approach, I promised to offer my own.  Here’s how I try to think about it, but your mileage may vary.

When I am the victim of other people’s scorn and hatred, that is wrong and I should look for every opportunity to ameliorate the harm done and shield other people from my fate.  However, when I am bullied, harassed, or despised, I have one consolation: I don’t fall prey to the particular ignorance and/or prejudice that leads people to treat me badly.  That’s one burden I don’t have to suffer, and I should try to help my tormentors shed theirs inasmuch as I am able to do so without putting myself in significant physical or emotional danger.

The last thing I should want is to double their suffering by wishing that, in addition to being disfigured by their hatred to the point of wounding others, that they should also have my burden of feeling isolated and rejected.  Rejecting their cruelty and dying to their old self, if they ever manage to pull it off, would be painful, but that ache is meant to catalyze a rebirth and new freedom.  Self-recognition is punishment enough, I don’t need to wish on them pain for the sake of pain.

And don’t forget, the odds are good that the people hurting me are acting out of ignorance or carelessness.  I may be spared their blind spots, but  before I indulge in any ‘righteous anger,’ I should remember to check my privilege (see here) and try to be mindful of the swath of victims in my wake.  The gravest sin in another doesn’t excuse even the smallest of mine.

Discussion of the appropriate use of mockery has twisted back into the ongoing discussion about vengeance and radical forgiveness thanks to a recent comment from Kogo:

Honestly, I don’t really care if mockery is effective because I have no hope of religion ever going away. Mostly I just want to hurt religious people so they feel as scared and hurt as I do being forced to live on a planet dominated by them. Nothing ever works to convince conservatives and religious people. They’re immune to facts. So since I have no hope of ever living in a more reasonable world, so at least I can comfort myself by letting religious people know what I really think of their insane, evil, shit-beliefs. 

Kogo’s point, and the examples given by March Hare farther up the thread, about the pain/damage Christians inflict on atheists deserve consideration.  We needn’t look further back than a few weeks to see an example in the case of Damien Fowler.  Damien, a high school senior, pointed out that his school’s prayer at graduation explicitly violated court precedent protecting children from religious pressure in public school and asked that it be cut this year.  Since he stood up, he’s been attacked by his teachers and his school administrators, he’s received death threats, and he’s been disowned and kicked out of his house by his parents.

Although I enjoy all the interesting philosophical conversations with theologically-sophisticated Christians I get to have in my safe position at a Northeast college, I can’t forget that many American Christians despise me and some would harm me if they could.  They’d like to prevent me from adopting children and would prefer I not serve in public office.  If I discuss my beliefs in public and encourage my peers to ask me questions, they call it harassment and intimidation.

And I’m still extra-bonus lucky, because I grew up on Long Island, in a high school full of secular Jews, so, although I was unlikeable in high school, my religious beliefs were never a source of tension; I was spared the harassment and sniping Jen Fulwiler of Conversion Diary went through in her atheistic childhood.

But, although I recognize and am grieved by the situations of atheists in this country and through the world, I still reject the retributive tack endorsed by Kogo.   No person is entitled to the suffering of another as compensation for what she herself has undergone.  If we recognize the painfulness of our position and decry it as inhumane, we can’t turn around and wish it on someone else.

Kogo’s comment reminds me of a letter in this week’s Dear Prudence advice column on Slate.  One mother wrote in to say:

I enrolled my two boys into an exclusive private school in our new hometown. At a school event I bumped into an attractive woman whom I didn’t recognize. She came by and asked if I remember her. It turns out that she was someone I bullied in high school. After that day I noticed other moms slowly avoiding me. I think she must have told them about how I used to bully her. Eventually my boys started coming home, crying and upset that other kids wouldn’t play with them. My younger son was not allowed to join a game of hockey during recess because another boy told him, “My mom says your mom is a b***h.” They are now openly being ridiculed and ostracized at school by their peers. I asked to meet my former classmate and apologized for bullying her as I was young and stupid, although I don’t much remember what I did. She smiled at me in a creepy way and said she went through therapy for what I put her through. I haven’t told my husband about this woman because I’m a little ashamed at how I used to treat her. Putting my boys into another school is not a feasible option, but I just don’t know what to do. 

The former bully behaved terribly, but it’s hard to feel a sense of satisfaction when we see her vicious childhood behavior rebounding on her and her family.  The isolation she experiences now will not undo the considerable harm she did to her victim, and it may make it more difficult for her to be better than she was.

And, of course, the vengeance sought by the long-ago victim is already rebounding onto the innocent children of the former bully.  In an effort to create justice, the victimized mother is subjecting the sons of her tormentor to the very treatment that left her scarred.  I doubt very much that most of us would be any good at designing a revenge that can avoid this kind of friendly fire.  If you want someone to suffer horribly, you are also wishing pain onto every single person who loves him or her, unless your opponent is an orphaned hermit.

[This has been a critique of one way to respond to anti-atheist sentiment.  Later today, I'll post an outline of how I do try to handle this]